1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photovoltaic power generation system incorporated in a vehicle body cover for protecting a vehicle and is provided to charge a battery of the vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
As this kind of vehicular photovoltaic power generation system, it has been proposed, e.g., in Japanese examined utility model application publication No. H1-15531, that light receiving surfaces of solar cells are exposed on an outer surface of a vehicle body cover for covering a vehicle to be protected and thereby the electromotive force of the solar cells is supplied to a ventilating device especially when the sun is shining. Such a photovoltaic power generation system is used also to apply auxiliary charge to a battery mounted on, e.g., a two-wheeled vehicle (a saddle-straddling type vehicle) and also is used to feed electric power to parts of the two-wheeled vehicle carrying a secondary battery.
However, the vehicular photovoltaic power generation system according to the conventional art described above has the following problem.
When solar cells are connected with a battery of a vehicle to charge the battery from the solar cells, the electricity of the solar cells and a remaining battery level cannot be known unless a measuring instrument is employed. In this case, a device has been disclosed in which in order to prevent electric power consumption attributable to the use of a measuring instrument, an indicator is incorporated for displaying the remaining battery level by means of LEDs or the like only when a user has pushed a button of the indicator. If a user does not operate the button at all, however, the remaining battery level cannot be checked. Therefore, if the electricity of the solar cells and the remaining battery level cannot be checked at once, the vehicular photovoltaic power generation system cannot be efficiently operated.
Further, when mounting a solar cell panel on a vehicle body cover for covering a vehicle, unlike for usual stationary usage of the solar cells, the solar panel needs to be repeatedly mounted and dismounted, with such a frequency as required for the sake of, e.g., changing the mounted position of the solar cell panel depending on a sunlight direction, in addition to an ordinary need for dismounting and mounting the vehicle body cover itself every time one travel finishes. The solar cell panel is covered with a cover with a housing structure. However, for this reason, more reliable waterproof performance has been sought after for the vehicle body cover.